Faith Issue 2 Review: Ghost Time

Faith Herbert is a psiot with the ability to fly. Raised on science-fiction and fantasy pop culture it’s natural for her to become a superhero. However, her enemies banded together and publicly framed her for murder. Now she is ordinary Faith, trying to figure out a way to help people again. In issue two of ‘Faith’ she gets the chance to help the young Monica Jim. Still, out of her depth Faith contacts Dr. Mirage. Then the fun begins.

The idea of how ghosts work in the Valiant universe is broken down by a beleaguered Dr. Fong (Mirage) who’s tired of the half-baked jokes about magic. Her response to the ‘wacky magic’ question is an intelligent explanation on how and why magic should be considered a science, with its own set of rules. In essence not believing in ghosts doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. It’s similar to saying you don’t believe in gravity, while your feet are planted on the ground. Just because you don’t understand how something works it isn’t a reason for devaluing it. Meanwhile, Monica Jim (codename Animalia) is a psiot with the ability to shape into different animals. She was raised by Project Rising Spirit to be a killer. But she was freed along with other teenage psiots and formed Generation Zero. They helped others like themselves and for a time built a community which was a safe haven. That soon changed and they were hunted down in the second Harbinger Wars. Having survived Animalia finds herself having life-threatening nightmares. And coming off helping the Shadowman, paranormal-psychologist Dr. Mirage and her ghost husband are now attempting to help whatever is hunting Animalia. When the Dr. and Faith attempt to stop the ghosts from taking Monica, they notice that these are not typical malevolent spirits. Rather they blame her for living and steal her soul. It’s something to see, a wounded child, who’s experienced too much in her short life. Now she seems so fragile in her comatose state. That said the artwork is amazing. The look on Faith’s face when she finds herself helpless to rescue Monica and Monica’s fear are palpable. They look like real people who are terrified.

In order for Faith to help her young friend she’s going to have to venture into another dimension. As a hero, Faith believes this is her purpose to help others. Still, this is a part of the world she’s not familiar with. Visiting a version of the astral plane with a paranormal-psychologist as her guide and ghosts to protect their bodies as they go traveling is going to make issue three something special.